A New Era of E-Commerce: Facebook Messenger’s Buy Button

Facebook has been wooing businesses for years, encouraging them to join the platform and invest in the social network. Now, it takes another giant step as it inserts itself between businesses and their customers—staking its claim on the future of e-commerce.

Since April, their Messenger feature has allowed brands to engage better with customers using bots. Before, if a customer wanted to buy, they had to exit Messenger to complete purchases from external websites.

But not anymore; Facebook finally changed the game.

Introducing: The Buy Button

Last September 12, 2016, the social network made life easier for both businesses and their customers by adding a Buy Button on Messenger. Users can now buy products from bots without leaving Facebook. No need to do a two-step purchase process; all it takes is a click or two.

Payment is also easier. Users can automatically punch in their credit cards and address information linked to their Messenger profiles. After tapping the buy button, customers will see the total cost plus their payment information. To complete the purchase, all they have to do is tap “pay” and wait for the order confirmation.

According to Facebook’s developer documentation, companies can use either PayPal or Stripe to process all payments. Currently, all Messenger payments are available in the U.S. only.

A Bonus for Businesses

Brands can also thrive with Facebook’s latest update. For starters, they can now add links to their Facebook ads, which direct customers to their Messenger bots. Advertisers can also entice customers with Messenger-only sales and discount codes.

Product displays are also better in Messenger. Brands can tweak how the app displays their products through image thumbnails with Messenger’s gallery-style card format. Custom web pages that take up the whole or a fraction of the screen are also options.

The addition of the “buy” button on Messenger speaks volumes about the future of e-commerce. Rest assured, both businesses and customers will benefit from the new feature.

If you want to learn more about how you can use Facebook and Messenger to your business’ advantage, get in touch with us today.